Experimental Method in Social Psychology - Essay Example

?Outline and assess the use of experiments in social psychology drawing on the cognitive social perspective and on the discursive psychological perspective. The field of social psychology deals with the scientific methods to study how the facets of people’s thoughts, behaviours and feelings are influenced through the presence of actual, imagined or implied others (Allport, 1985). Based on this definition, the term scientific indicates the empirical method(s) of investigation being used. Similarly, the terms thoughts, feelings and behaviours refer to the set of psychological variables that can be measured in a human being. The expression that some may be imagined or implied stems from the fact that human beings are susceptible to social influence. This stands true even in cases where other human beings are not present as people are influenced by other factors such as watching television or following internalised cultural norms. Overall social psychology is an empirical science that tries to answer various questions about human behaviour through hypotheses testing in both the field and the laboratory. Meticulous attention to sampling, research design and statistical analysis is important in order to make valid conclusions about experimentation in social psychology. Social psychologists may choose to apply different methodologies for research such as experimental methods, correlation based methods or observation methods to name just a few. Moreover, research and experimentation in social psychology is also influenced by the differing approaches used in social psychology such as the cognitive social perspective and the discursive psychological perspective. This text will attempt to analyse the use of experimentation in social psychology by concentrating on the cognitive social perspective and the discursive psychological perspective. Both approaches to social psychology are briefly outlined below to aid the development of appropriate argumentation later. The social cognitive perspective of social psychology holds that various portions of an individual’s knowledge acquisition can be related to the observation of other people in contexts of personal experiences, social interactions and the influence of outside media. This psychological model revolves around the process of knowledge gathering that is directly related to observation. The models used within the social cognitive approach could either be based on interpersonal imitation or on different media sources. Effective modelling of these models produces general rules and strategies that are used to deal various situations (Bandura, Organizational Application of Social Cognitive Theory, 1988). Various experiments have been conducted to prove that people learn when they watch others around themselves. Once such experiment was set up by Albert Bandura and was entitled “Bobo Doll Behaviour: A Study of Aggression”. The researcher exposed a group of children to a short video that depicted aggression and violent actions. After seeing the video, the children were put in a room with a Bobo doll in order to observe how they behaved with it. The observations of Bandura showed that children exposed to the violent and aggressive video were more prone to violent behaviour with the Bobo doll when compared to children who were not exposed to the video. This experiment clearly delineates that people tend to re-enact behaviours that they observe due to media exposure. The children in this experiment replicated the violent behaviour that they were exposed to in the video, which in turn reflects on the social cognitive perspective. Experiments such as these allow researchers to investigate the permeation of various influences on human behaviour through the process of social cognition. Based on experiments such as these, it has been inferred that the observer in these situations does not expect to receive any rewards or get punished but instead is looking for outcomes similar to the observed behaviour. Consequently, the observer allows these effects to begin working in his own life. It must be born in mind that these behaviours rely largely on outcome expectancies. Subsequently, these outcome expectancies are influenced in large part by the observer’s environment. For example, a person growing up in the United States would expect the consequences of DUI (drunk under influence) as the imposition of a fine along with expected jail time. In contrast, people growing up in the Middle East would expect the death sentence for similar behaviour (Bandura, 1989). In contrast to social cognitive psychology, the discursive psychological perspective is concerned with interaction between human beings. More specifically, discursive psychology is concerned with how issues are constructed, dealt with and understood as human beings interact. A typical evaluation based on the discursive psychological perspective may consist of using certain phrases and idioms that the participants respond to. The expression of interest in these phrases and idioms by participants indicate the assumption of strong positions on these issues. The primary focus of discursive psychology is not on psychological matters that might spill over into human interaction but instead on the emphasis that interaction is where psychological issues really lie. This approach is in opposition to the more traditional cognitive approach to psychology. Instead, this approach relies on the study of naturally occurring human conversation that is used in order to analyze the way that matters are treated in psychological domains. Using the discursive perspective on psychology, studies of naturally occurring human interaction are carried out in order to better comprehend various issues in the domains of social and cognitive psychology. The discursive view on psychology is highly differentiated from mainstream psychology and it came into being only because there was dissatisfaction with the traditional view on discourse in traditional psychology. The more traditional view on psychology treats people’s discourse as windows (with different degrees of opacity) that open up people’s mind for examination. On the other hand, discursive psychology tends to treat human discourse as a means of measuring the content of human being’s minds. Within the domains of experimental psychology and protocol analysis, people’s discourse is used as means to deal with social action. Human discourse is treated purely as social action. This indicates that human beings say what they do “as a means of, and in the course of, doing things in a socially meaningful world”. Consequently, the discursive psychological view holds that the questions used to gauge people’s state of mind keep on changing as social interaction changes. A number of experiments in social psychology tend to rely on more than one perspective. For example, the Asch conformity experiment demonstrated that conformity was a major factor in small groups. The experiment relied on discursive means for participants to perform an easy line estimation task basing their judgement on the views of the majority. The discursive aspect in psychology reveals that human beings are ready to provide meaning to things even if those things are not based on fact. As related before, human beings do things in order to relate to a socially meaningful world through the conformity of their actions. The experiment showed that one third of all participants conformed with the majority for all responses even though the majority was clearly wrong. Also three fourths of all participants conformed at least once to the majority during the experimentation (Asch, 1955). The adoption of the majority response by participants indicates the social cognitive aspect of this experiment. Another major experiment in social psychology was Leon Festinger’s experiment on cognitive dissonance. The participants were asked to perform a boring task and were divided into two groups with differing pay scales. One group of participants were paid $1 to report that they liked the task while the other group was paid $20 to report the same thing. The low paid group later reported liking the task better then the high paid group. The researcher theorised that people justified their false responses by altering their previously held attitudes about things (Festinger & Carlsmith, 1959). This experiment clearly demonstrates that the social cognitive responses of people can be altered using overbearing manipulation. Another famous social psychological experiment is Milgram’s experiment to see how far people respected and obeyed an authority figure. The experiment relied on subjecting an ordinary person to an authority figure (often in the form of a scientist) who told the person to administer electric shocks to another person (who is hidden from view). Practically there was no person being shocked but instead an actor relayed increasing negative responses as voltage levels were increased for the shock being delivered. The experiment clearly demonstrated that an ordinary person under the influence of an authority figure would go to any limits in order to be socially conformant (Milgram, 1975). This stood true even as the person administering the voltage shocks could hear the screams and pleas of the person at the other end. The scripture used to deliver ideas in this experiment consisted of insistence to shock the other person despite repeated pleas for stopping. This clearly demonstrates the discursive aspect of this experiment as certain scripts were used to enforce ideas onto the person administering the shock. On the other hand, this experiment has clear social cognitive connotations too. The person administering the shocks relegated all authority to the authority figure because of a lack of decision making authority and expertise. This result is highly revealing for social cognition perspectives because it shows that people tend to conform to figures of higher authority than themselves no matter the nature of the task. Social psychology tries to explore the relationship that people have with society and how these relationships are conceived and dealt with on a personal and social scale. Overall, social psychology relies on a number of perspectives in order to deal with hypothesis testing. The cognitive social perspective is the more traditional method of social psychological research. This method relies on deciphering human response in a social environment that is based on learning from society and from influences such as the media. In contrast, the psychological discursive perspective is a more recent method of initiating social psychological research. The traditional approach tends to rely on observation and social influence through media while the more recent approach tends to decipher how individuals build their own worlds using formulated scripts. Research from both aspects is essential to deciphering human behaviour in the social context. 1. Bibliography Allport, G. W. (1985). The historical background of social psychology. In G. Lindzey, & E. Aronson, The handbook of social psychology. New York: McGraw Hill. Asch, S. E. (1955). Opinions and social pressure. Scientific American , 31-35. Bandura, A. (1989). Human Agency in Social Cognitive Theory. American Psychologist 44 , 1175–1184. Bandura, A. (1988). Organizational Application of Social Cognitive Theory. Australian Journal of Management, 13(2) , 275–302. Edwards, D. (2005). Discursive psychology. In K. L. Fitch, & R. E. Sanders, Handbook of language and social interaction (pp. 257-273). New York: Erlbaum. Festinger, L., & Carlsmith, J. M. (1959). Cognitive consequences of forced compliance. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 58 , 203-211. Milgram, S. (1975). Obedience to authority. New York: Harper and Bros. Read More